How long do all Canadians spend playing video games in a month?
(Yana and Julian)
Math Skills:
  • Multiplication and division
  • Survey, social skills
  • Research skills
  • Estimation skills
  • Averaging, the concept of the average
  • Geography, knowledge of socio-economic state of Canada
  • Assumptions

What’s the total time (in days) your entire class has spent chewing gum over a lifetime?
(Hailey and Michelle K)

Math Skills:
  • Collecting and recording data
  • Taking mean value of data
  • Convert units of time

How many party sized pizzas would it take to cover the outside of the homes on your street?
(Kathryn and Eddie)
Math Skills:

  • Equations for areas of squares, rectangles, and triangles (measurement)
  • Surface area (measurement)
  • Tiling patterns (geometry and special sense)
  • Exponents, multiplication, addition (number and sense and numeration)
  • Classify polygons (geometry and spatial sense)
  • Solving geometry problems (geometry and spatial sense)

How many meters does a student travel within the school per year?
(Brad and Kay)
Math Skills
  • Decimals, fractions, multiplication, collection and recording data

How many skateboards do you need to cover a skyscraper?
(Chris & Girthiga)
Math Skills
  • Solving geometry problems (grade 8)
  • Surface area of a rectangular prism (grade 7)
  • Surface area of a cylinder (grade 8)
  • Surface area of a triangular prism (grade 8)
  • Decimals (grade 7)

How many kilometers does the entire student population of your school walk in one year during school hours? (Doina & Vick)

Math Skills
  • Measurement skills
  • Distance scales
  • Estimation
  • Averaging
  • Polling (data management)
  • Calculation and logic (Number sense and numeration, critical thinking)
  • Problem solving

How many trees need to be cut down to provide paper for an entire school year? (Christe & Nathan)
Math Skills
  • Estimation
  • Organizational skills for multi-step questions
  • Basic Math skills (i.e. arithmetic, conversion, multiplication)

How many cell phones would you need to put end to end to make a ‘ring’ around the world? Are there enough cell phones in the world to accomplish this task? (Mala Singh and Lisa Kosh)
Math Skills
  • Number sense and numeration: Scientific notation, BEDMAS
  • Measurement: Circle and Circumference
  • Geometry and spatial sense: cell phone size in relation to the world

How many balloons would it take to fill a swimming pool?
(Greg Leverton and Liz Wunderlich)
Math Skills
  • They need to know how to calculate volumes and areas
  • They need to understand shapes, and how spheres stack, and fill a volume.
  • They have to understand averages, particularly average volumes